Saturday, May 7, 2011

Death is just around the corner for ROSEMARY the chicken. The greedy farmer, MOLLY MUDDLEHUMP has chosen her weakest egg layer for the holiday feast. When a weasel breaks into the coop, Rosemary bids her sisters farewell and accepts her bizarre captor over a sharpened axe that stands in the farmyards stump. In a chilling escape from the farm, Rosemary develops “Stockholm Syndrome” and falls in love with the weasel and his adventurous lifestyle. Yet he is not who he seems.While the journey to the weasel’s den is long and arduous, his appetite for Rosemary turns from obsession to a literal hunger for the flesh. He attempts to kill the hen before a train takes his own life and Rosemary is left to defend herself in the wild.Issue 2 – THE CARNIVALWeeks later, Rosemary is back on the farm confined to a cage. On the day she’s to be executed, Muddlehump finds her hen has laid a giant egg and so spares her life. She takes the egg into town where the diabolical carnival owner, TALLAHASSEE SPILLWELL displays it as a mythical unborn creature.One night, the colossal egg hatches in front of the carnival crowd and catches the attention of a curious old owl who takes an interest in the malformed fledgling. The creature known as CECIL is born both chicken and weasel. He’s mocked by fellow carnies, patrolled by Nazi Doberman and ogled by fat mid-westerners.As time passes, Tallahassee reaps the profits from the creature’s deformity and decides to move the carnival onward. He persuades the smitten Muddlehump to travel or give up her prized defect. She will sell her farm and have a feast with Rosemary’s sisters as the main course.It is up to Rosemary to persuade the old owl into duty. He calls upon two roguish rats to devise a plan to free the captives from their guarded cage and to save the sisters before it’s too late.Issue 3 – THE GREAT ESCAPEOne early morn, the rat’s spring the towns bully watch dog. His attack on the Doberman gives the owl time to free Rosemary. With not a moment to lose, chicken and chick hitch a ride on a milk truck to the Muddlehump farm. While the farmhand sharpens his axe, Cecil chews through the latch and frees the sisters from their coop.In a speedy pursuit, Tallahassee spies the escapees boarding a freight train and leaps to the locomotion while Muddlehump roars alongside in her pick-up. As he closes in on the hens, Cecil climbs below the train and uses his weasel like snout to separate the boxcars. He falls from the train and over the bridge into a misty ravine never to be seen again. The crazed Muddlehump follows her prize over the bridge to her end and Tallahassee fades into the distance trapped on the dormant boxcars.The owl takes the hens to a farmer who cares for the birds. The grieving Rosemary tells tales of her hero fledgling into old age until one day she dies and joins Cecil in the heavens.

Close-up profile of a chicken eye framed in wooden fence posts and wrapped in uneven barbed wire. Behind and around the frame, a spooky old farmhouse and a Farris wheel that fade into the cover.

VOLUME 1 – AN UNUSUAL LOVE AFFAIR

PAGE 1 – Chapter 1 “Escape from Muddlehump Farm”

SPLASH PAGE

Circa 1949: In the foreground, a dormant old tractor sits alone. In the background, a run-down farmhouse with soft-lit windows illuminates snow flurries. To the side of the house and closer, a chicken coop rests under a spooky old maple tree.

PAGE 2 - 5 Panels

PANEL 1

Snow piles high above the side of a chicken coop.

CLARENCE (OP):Rosemary Featherbottom was bought a day in late November with five others… two being her sisters.

PANEL 2

Close-on the dark entrance to the coop.

CLARENCE (OP):They were purchased by a certain Molly Muddlehump. Muddlehump had a fine piece of property just a short distance north of the Missourian town of Boonville.

PANEL 3

Inside, a faint light seeps through the cracks of the coop. Five chickens are asleep on their shelves. A sixth chicken sleeps away from the others.

CLARENCE (OP):The fertile land had been given to Muddlehump by her late uncle Bubby. He was a decent man that had know one else to give it to.PANEL 4